1 SHAMASH.ORG /usr/www/wwwhc/listserv/archives/heblang May 2000
2 22 21_more definite article16_RUTHANNA BARNETT25_r.barnett@lancaster.ac.uk37_Fri, 12 May 2000 09:17:58 +0100 (BST)438_us-ascii My original posting was not very clear, so i wanted to rephrase my question. What i really wanted to know is this: Do we know of (and/or have evidence for) the existence of an earlier form of the definite article, in Hebrew, (or earlier Semitic), of a free form definite article? This form would then have been grammaticalized to the prefix ha-. Any relevant information would be gratefully received! thanks to all Ruthanna [...]
25 87 41_heh = DH ?? --> definite article the = Ha11_Cohen, Izzy18_Izzy_Cohen@bmc.com31_Fri, 12 May 2000 07:36:20 -0500318_ISO-8859-1 Perhaps words for blood, man, red and earth have become multilingual homophones, in part, due to a sound-shift [postulated by me] of the (proto)Hebrew 5th letter heh from DH to H.<br><br>In classical and modern Hebrew, the direct article is Ha. In English it is DHe [the]. In German it is der/das/die. [...]